undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Reporting & Analytics
  4. Referral Traffic from Google

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Referral Traffic from Google

Reporting & Analytics
4
10
9.4k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • RASEO
    RASEO last edited by Mar 17, 2015, 12:15 PM

    Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this.

    I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496.

    I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change.

    I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help!

    Thank you,

    Alex

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • katemorris
      katemorris last edited by May 13, 2015, 11:14 AM May 13, 2015, 11:14 AM

      Not saying that is it 100% but that could be a major part of the issue. I would talk with the agency running the PPC and let them know the issue and have them pair the AdWords and Analytics accounts.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Interdirect
        Interdirect last edited by May 11, 2015, 7:04 AM May 11, 2015, 7:04 AM

        No, unfortunately not. We are an agency, however the client has hired someone else to run their PPC campaign so we don't have their campaign data linked to GA.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • katemorris
          katemorris @Interdirect last edited by May 8, 2015, 12:38 PM May 8, 2015, 12:38 PM

          Hmmm, is your adwords account hooked up to your analytics account?

          Can you click into the results going to the homepage and set that secondary dimension to country? That should be a possibility, a location of some kind.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Interdirect
            Interdirect last edited by May 8, 2015, 12:33 PM May 8, 2015, 12:33 PM

            Hi Kate, yes there are 1,374 sessions.

            Half of them are going to the homepage "/"

            Then there are around 350 going to promo single URL pages from PPC campaigns (so I understand the reason for those).

            Around 100 are going to the "About Us" and "contact us" pages. Could these be ad extensions?

            katemorris 1 Reply Last reply May 8, 2015, 12:38 PM Reply Quote 0
            • katemorris
              katemorris @Interdirect last edited by May 8, 2015, 12:13 PM May 8, 2015, 12:13 PM

              Is there much traffic coming in this way? The above would suggest the referral is from the google.co.uk homepage, is not passing the referral page, or is from something internal as /url isn't a thing. I've seen all of this before, so you are not going nuts, but I don't have a concise answer. I can tell you that your search traffic should be going to organic and this should be something like news, images, or another google property. Most likely it's traffic that is blocking referral info.

              So I am hoping it's not much traffic. Where is the traffic going? Set that secondary dimension to landing page and let me know.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Interdirect
                Interdirect last edited by May 7, 2015, 6:04 AM May 7, 2015, 6:04 AM

                Hi Kate,

                I found this forum stream - we're having a similar situation. I tried your suggestion. Our top referrer is Google.co.uk. When I add the secondary dimension "Full Referrer" It says:

                1. "/"                         google.co.uk/

                2. "(not set)"             google.co.uk

                3. "/url"                      google.co.uk/url

                katemorris 1 Reply Last reply May 8, 2015, 12:13 PM Reply Quote 0
                • topic:timeago_earlier,about a month
                • katemorris
                  katemorris last edited by Mar 29, 2015, 3:09 AM Mar 29, 2015, 3:09 AM

                  My answer was going to be much like Dirks. There are some Google properties that send traffic as referral, not as search. Can you take a look at the referral traffic from google.com and add "Full Referrer" as a Secondary Dimension and let us know what that is?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • topic:timeago_earlier,11 days
                  • RASEO
                    RASEO last edited by Mar 18, 2015, 11:42 AM Mar 18, 2015, 11:42 AM

                    Thanks for help DC! I looked into both your suggestions, and our image search has dropped but not nearly enough to account for the drop in traffic and I looked into where most of the referral traffic from Google was coming from and it was the US.

                    Anyone else have any ideas on where the referral traffic from Google would have been coming from and why it dropped off the face of the earth with the new site when everything else has gone up?

                    Thank you!

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DirkC
                      DirkC last edited by Mar 17, 2015, 12:31 PM Mar 17, 2015, 12:31 PM

                      In countries where the "old" image search is still used (like Germany) - it is counted as Referral traffic rather than search traffic (not sure why). You could check in Webmastertools what your % of image search is (and compare January & February)

                      You could also try to check the landing pages report for this referral traffic and compare this with the landingpages in Acquisition >Search Engine Optimisation > Landingpages with secondary dimension "Google Property"

                      rgds,

                      Dirk

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      Browse Questions

                      Explore more categories

                      • Moz Tools

                        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                      • SEO Tactics

                        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                      • Community

                        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                      • Digital Marketing

                        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                      • Research & Trends

                        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                      • Support

                        Connect on product support and feature requests.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • TottiataHUN

                        Google Search Console not loading some resources

                        When I check an URL with Search Console it cannot load some page resources, even from other domains (like: ssl.google-analytics.com, www.facebook.com and www.google-analytics.com).
                        Have any of you experienced this issue?
                        Steps to reproduce: open Google Search Console check an URL click "View crawled page" link select "More info" tab click "Page resources" {?}/{?} couldn't be loaded When I check the listed resources, all of them can be loaded from a web browser.
                        So I do not understand why Google cannot load them.
                        And there is no additional info why the resources could not be loaded.
                        Any ideas? google-search-console-other-error-1.png google-search-console-other-error-2.png

                        Reporting & Analytics | Jan 23, 2023, 1:16 PM | TottiataHUN
                        0
                      • lmoraes

                        Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics

                        Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg

                        Reporting & Analytics | Sep 20, 2018, 2:54 AM | lmoraes
                        0
                      • RosemaryB

                        We have a client that wants to apply UTM URL tagging to track local organic traffic in Google Analytics. Is there any benefit in doing this?

                        One of our clients requested that we apply UTM URL tagging to better track organic traffic in Google Analytics.   We found this to be an odd request because we are most familiar with UTM tracking for special campaigns (referral tracking, PPC, email tracking, etc). Is there any benefit of applying UTM tags to urls to analyze local organic traffic in Google Analytics?  Are there any resources out there about this? Thanks!

                        Reporting & Analytics | Jan 13, 2016, 5:10 PM | RosemaryB
                        0
                      • KarlMarxTheBear

                        Google Analytics Real Time Not Working! :(

                        Hello Everyone, Today, the real time feature in my google analytics stopped working. I am able to see that traffic is visiting my site, but not in real time. The real time count is usually at 0. But, there are some instances where real time will come back online, but there will be only 1 unique visitor.  At any given time, our website usually has 20 visitors or so..Has anyone encountered this issue? Where should i start looking for fixes? What are the possible problems? Thanks!

                        Reporting & Analytics | Jan 7, 2015, 7:30 AM | KarlMarxTheBear
                        0
                      • EcommerceSite

                        How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?

                        We are looking at making our site HTTPS. We have been using the same Google Analytics account for years and I like having the historical data. All of our pages will be the same, we are just going to redirect from the http to https. Does anything need to be done with Google Analytics? What about other addons such as Optimizely, Crazy Egg, or Share this?

                        Reporting & Analytics | Sep 16, 2014, 7:50 PM | EcommerceSite
                        0
                      • theLotter

                        Setting up Google Analytics for Subsites

                        I currently have one main .com site and am planning on launching geo-location subsites .co.uk, .com.au, .ru, etc... Traffic will flow between both sites and some of the content on the subsites will be duplicate and therefore include a canonical tag to the main site. I want to set up GA to capture who is going to the subsites and vice versa and correctly capture crossover traffic.  Any advice on implementing advanced analytics directly (or links to sources that will direct me the right direction for this project)

                        Reporting & Analytics | Oct 22, 2012, 4:44 AM | theLotter
                        0
                      • eTundra

                        Has Anyone Else Noticed A Jump In Google Analytics Traffic Since Session Parameters Were Changed?

                        Ever since Google Analytics changed their session parameters August 12th I have seen a 20% jump in organic traffic & bounce rates along with a decline in pages/visit and conversion rate. To be clear, I don't put a whole heck of a lot of stock in these metrics as stand-alone indications of how my site is performing.  I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this blip. I noticed some other people mentioned a similar phenomenon in other SEO forums and blog comments, but nobody seems to be talking about this here at SEOMoz (unless I just haven't looked in the right place). I'm not saying the change I noticed has anything to do with the session update, I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar so that I can either cross it off the list of possible causes or explore further.

                        Reporting & Analytics | Aug 16, 2011, 6:07 PM | eTundra
                        0
                      • seoug_2005

                        Exclude Traffic from India

                        i would like to  exclude all traffic coming from India using  Advanced Segment in Google Analytics. How do i go about it ?  Will it be applied to future traffic also ?

                        Reporting & Analytics | Aug 11, 2011, 12:53 AM | seoug_2005
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.